Are You Happy?
by rachel-rage
Summary: Holly asks how long Karen's loved her.


They're lying in Holly's flat, tangled in sheets and each other, when Holly asks Karen the question she'd been avoiding.

"How long… how long have you wanted this?" she asks, quietly. Karen stills for just one moment, her fingertips nearly freezing on Holly's shoulder.

She thinks for a moment about how long she's wanted this. How long she's felt quirky butterflies in her stomach whenever she sat in Holly's class, and how long she's felt rage bubble up in her chest at her classmates' immature treatment of their teacher.

xx

It all started on the first day of classes. They'd heard there was going to be a new teacher in English, someone to replace Harold Kent, the doddering old man who forgot what he was supposed to be teaching almost daily.

They'd walked in and there she was, a bit of a mousy woman, with hair frizzed already although the day had just begun. But Karen hadn't seen any of that- she'd just seen full lips and brown eyes and when she'd tried to get them to begin class, Karen had been kind of enamored. It was quite obvious, even through her slight stuttering and the rude remarks from the boys in the back of the class, that Holly had a great passion for literature, and Karen became even more interested.

It took a while, she guesses, before she felt the common crush she was nursing develop into something more, something she felt she needed to act on.

It took almost a full year of Holly trying to communicate her passion for literature, and seeing her eyes dull a bit more every morning she came in to an unresponsive group of students, and a year of watching her paint in art club with practiced, gentle hands. At first, she thought it was just nice having a teacher near their age. Someone who'd been born in the last century was a pleasant change.

But after a while, she found herself smiling, and then laughing, at Holly's attempts at joking with the class, which died out soon into the year. She found herself wanting to know more about why she'd come into class with a grin, or why she set them an essay and stared out the window for an hour.

And eventually, of course, with her hormones being what they were, she'd found herself attracted to Holly. The way her hands moved over a canvas, or how she touched her lips self consciously in class, or the curve of her neck arching into her collarbone.

For a while, Karen had tried to ignore it. It was wrong, of course, and so weird, to be into your teacher. They'd all read the stories- male teachers forcing sex on their female students, or cougars having their way with all too willing teenage guys. But to Karen, the way she felt about Holly had nothing in common with those stories. For Karen, she felt purely happy in Holly's presence, even in just her limited capacity as a student.

xx

It took months, long months for her to accept that what she felt wasn't a crush, that she genuinely wanted to at least try to get to know Holly better. And in keeping with the rest of her life, when she sat in class and sorted through her emotions to find out that yes, she felt something serious for Holly, she asked her to the art exhibition the very same day.

Only someone who'd ever felt a crush on a teacher could feel what she felt, standing in that hallway. Knowing that any other student would find her weird, that there was the greatest chance that her teacher would be freaked out as well, she simply tried to gut her way past her intense nerves. She felt the nerves, of course, of someone asking someone else out on a date, because if she was honest with herself, that's what she wanted it to be. But the worst part of it was knowing that if Holly took this the wrong way, wasn't receptive or was simply having a bad day, it could make things deeply uncomfortable for both of them.

So she bounced on the balls of her feet in the hallway, breathing as deeply as possible, when Holly walked in. Just the smile on her face was enough to bolster Karen's courage, and she only hesitated a moment before asking.

She goes home slightly disappointed that day- partly elated because she knows Holly will be thinking about her, and her offer, but partly terrified that she'll say no.

The day she says yes, Karen can hardly get home before she breaks out into a spontaneous dance of joy.

xx

You'd have to look quite hard to see just how much Karen wants the trip to the art museum to go well, just how cautiously she probes for information about Holly's personal life. She cracks small jokes, hoping to elicit a grin or a quiet laugh from her teacher, all the time mindful of coming across crass or childlike.

When they sit down by the giant glass windows, you'd have to really pay attention to see Karen tense up when she asks if Holly is seeing anyone. The way she smiles, disarmingly, to get Holly to tell her, and how her gaze drops to her lap and her lips downturn just so, when she gets the answer. How she just wants to know if Holly is happy, how her eyebrows crease at Holly's hesitant yes.

xx

When Holly keeps her back after class a few days after their trip, an anxious fear develops in the pit of her stomach. She spends the rest of the lesson with her stomach in knots, agonizing over being told it's weird, that she's too young, that even though it was just friendly, well, they can't be friends.

When Holly asks if she'd like to come over for tea after school, her heart nearly bursts from joy.

And all of that led to today, led to right here, where Karen is laying with Holly's head on her chest. To a day they've spent together, sharing whispers and tears, moans and gentle touches. Thinking back, it seems like there's no other way this could have gone- she simply felt too strongly about Holly to ever let it go.

"All I've wanted was for you to be happy," Karen whispers back. "For a long time, I've just wanted you to be happy."


End file.
